bibliotects. discussion

Ok fairly new to this, but this is in reference to the scene at the end of chapter 6. I think it's pretty messed up to do this "experiment" with his boss(?) I have no experience in journalism but is there such a thing as going too far to get the facts? Would love to hear your thoughts -ling

Chelle-lou wrote: "Ok fairly new to this, but this is in reference to the scene at the end of chapter 6. I think it's pretty messed up to do this "experiment" with his boss(?) I have no experience in journalism but i..."

I think the experiment can be considered messed up no matter what. Overall, he is testing to see if the culling song actually works or not. If he didn't do it against his boss(which he seems to have a small gripe with), he probably would have to use it against someone else. Basically, in the end, no matter what, someone is going to end up dead because the culling song actually works.

Yeah, there is no doubt that there are ethical implications of what Straener did to Duncan. It is also important to examine what Liza has said: "he didn't do it against his boss, he probably would have to use it against someone else." We had discussed this in our live discussion but I do have to say that Straener knew that there were consequences to the culling song - he knew it more than most people and knew there was a chance that it could prove his hypothesis. I do think that most of us would agree that it was messed up.

As a journalism major, I could go more into the journalism aspects of how ethical this is in terms of getting the facts. Journalists abide by a specific code of ethics (SPJ) as does most occupations. And the code states a journalist must "minimize harm." In this particular case, and Straener does argue introspectively, someone could say that killing one person, in this case Duncan, would mean it would prove the culling song works and could save potentially millions of people (a point raised by Liza above.) However, I would argue that while Straener knows that the culling song has the potential to kill (and not knowing fully that is does until proven), he could've held off doing such an experiment. Most importantly, Straener had already gathered enough evidence to make an educated and informed guess on the outcome (of his hypothesis) - I don't think the experiment he had was absolutely necessary.

I think the definite key point in this scene is that Carl knew that this song/poem was potentially dangerous. And yet, he made the conscious choice to test his theory out on his boss. Also to consider, his issues with his boss is hinted at in the previous chapters, so, he has the motive to kill him. Thinking about it now, this scene reminds me of the "free choice" issue that is talked about in the book.